


The Dream

by Aquarius-Starchild (Rosenth0rne)



Category: Gravity Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24146665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosenth0rne/pseuds/Aquarius-Starchild
Summary: This was a one-shot I wrote a couple of years back on Tumblr and decided to bring it here. It takes place after the portal incident and Stan realizes that his mother may not be entirely lying about her abilities. It's a bit of a tear-jerker since I had gone a route where Filbrick may have regretted his actions.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	The Dream

Growing up, I never thought of my mother being any more than a pathological liar in order to sell her ‘psychic skills’. While Sixer may have believed her as she was also encouraging his paranormal hobby, I was still skeptical. So was Pa. It wasn’t until the ‘incident’ that I changed my mind entirely.

* * *

It wasn’t an hour after he was gone that the phone started to ring. It rang and rang and I just ignored it. I was frantically trying to find out a way to immediately reverse what I had done. Whoever was on the other end could wait. This was more important. I poured over the journal my brother had left to find any clue on how to turn the damn thing back on. I flipped through page after page of what looked like sheer nonsense before coming to a page of just lines and shapes. My head hurt just looking at it. This was much more complicated than anything Sixer had put together before. I wanted to rip my hair out. The phone ringing every hour on the hour for twelve hours didn’t help either.

When I had enough, I snatched the phone out of its cradle and barked into it.

“What?! What do you want?!” I was almost foaming at the mouth at this point, driven to the brink of madness while trying to deal with the reality that my brother was gone and I couldn’t bring him back. The voice on the other end made my blood run cold.

“Stanford?! My Goodness! Are you okay?!”

It was my mother. Our mother. I hadn’t heard her sweet voice in ages. She sounded so worried. I cleared my throat and rubbed the back of my neck, trying to remember how to do Sixer’s voice again. I couldn’t let her know what I’ve done. The last thing I needed was her and Pa showing up on the doorstep. The last thing I needed was either of them believing I had murdered my own brother.

“Y-Yeah, Mom, I’m fine…” I answered. Sixer’s voice was a bit harder to do now that his voice didn’t crack left and right but I’d like to think I did a pretty good job. At first anyway. I also had to refrain from calling her ‘Ma’ as Sixer never called her that. It was always ‘Mom’.

“You don’t sound fine!” my mother chided.

“No really-!”

“You sound like Stanley…”

“W-What…?” I whispered, my entire body freezing up. It took me a moment or two before I regained my composure and scoffed. “I-I haven’t heard from that bum in ages! W-Why would I sound like him? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”

I chuckled nervously, hoping like hell she’d buy it. I heard a sigh on the other end.

“You’re right. You’re right. I just…” she sounded defeated. I never liked that tone. “It was just a horrible dream. And I guess I just miss both of my boys…”

“Dream?” I asked before I could stop myself. Mom tended to drone on and on about ‘dreams’ or ‘premonitions’ she’s had, but part of me was actually curious. “What dream?”

“Don’t worry about it, hon. I’m sure you have more important things to get back to.”

I was half expecting the tone to go more ‘guilt trip’ like it usually did when she wanted something but it stayed very melancholy like she was serious and didn’t want to waste my- Sixer’s time.

“No, no, I-I can take a break…” I reassured her. It wouldn’t be too out of character for Sixer to ask about this sort of thing, right? “What dream?”

Another deep sigh followed.

“Well…”

My own mother spilled every detail of the accident and what led up to it. She shouldn’t have known anything about this. She wasn’t there. She couldn’t have known why Sixer would have called me there, how the fight had started or that I had burned my shoulder on one of Sixer’s machines during the brawl but she did. Caryn Romanoff Pines knew it all. Word for word. She didn’t know what the portal was to, she didn’t know why Sixer needed me to hide the book, but she belted out everything that happened regardless.

“Then, Stanley answered the phone instead of you and posed as you and the dream ended…” she finished. I was absolutely dumbfounded. How? Wasn’t this supposed to just be a dream she had? “I really would like to come over there to see you but you know how your father is with traveling.”

“No! Yeah, I mean… Yeah, I understand…” I sputtered out. “Pa has the worst road rage…”

“Exactly. I shouldn’t be telling you this either, but your father has been getting worried about Stanley. We both have.”

“Ah, Mom, I’m sure that drifter is fine. Probably holed up somewhere in Vegas or ya know,” I shrugged. At least she remembered me. It felt great that they actually thought about me after the incident. Ma’s voice suddenly went hushed but I could hear a tinge of excitement in her voice.

“I didn’t tell you this, but your father sent some of his old ‘friends’ out to track him down.”

I tensed up again, breaking out into a cold sweat. An incident back in Vegas came to mind where three older men approached me and asked me if I was ‘Filbrick’s kid’ then proceeded to try to shove me into the backseat of a car. They were just as stoic as my old man so that should have been a dead giveaway but, at the time, I thought it was someone I had owed money to or wanted revenge for whatever crap I had pulled in whatever country or state. Or it was someone Pa had crossed and they were looking to use me as a bargaining chip. Well, thankfully they didn’t end up like Rico’s goons who may or may not have been buried out in the middle of the Napa Valley Desert. I think I just stranded them out in the middle of nowhere and took their car- Oh. Wait…

“He won’t admit it, but I think he wants Stanley back. I’ve caught him staring at that gold medallion Stan modified for him when he was a boy,” she chortled but her voice trailed off. “Look, Stanford, I know you’re still upset over what happened and we have been avoiding talking about the issue for some time… But I would like to see the two of you together again. You two used to be inseparable. If we do end up finding him… I want you two to at least sit down to talk it out… Okay? Promise me?”

Silence followed for what felt like ages. I could feel my chest tighten and before I knew it, a tear-streaked my face.

“Yeah, okay,” my voice cracked. Damn it. I quickly wiped my eyes on the sleeve of my jacket. Of all times my mom needed to do this…

“Good. I want to bring this family back together. It’s been so long since we had a proper reunion.”

I could hear the smile in her voice which only made my chest hurt more. A deep, familiar voice in the background made me jump. It was Pa, asking Ma if she had seen something of his. Ma gave him some directions before sighing. “I’m going to have to let you go, Sweetie. Your father can’t find his sock garters again.”

“A-All right,” was all I could say.

“I’ll talk to you later. Remember that I love you.”

“Love you too, Mom,” my voice quivered.

“And Stan,”

I froze once more. At that exact moment, it felt as if she knew she wasn’t talking to Sixer. It felt like she could see me standing there, a tired mess and pretending I was being my twin. She always had a knack for telling Sixer and me apart when we used to change clothes to try to trick our parents. Either it worked on Pa or he just didn’t care enough to call us out on our crap, but we couldn’t convince Ma.

“Y-Yeah?”

“Please take care of yourself… You can’t help others if you can’t help yourself first,”

* * *

Thirty years later and I can tell you that I am a firm believer that my mother was truly psychic and I took the advice to heart, always helping myself first before anyone else. I can’t tell if she knew it was me or not, but she never brought it up again, not even at my own funeral or on her death bed. She took that secret to the grave.

I know I had lost a lot of memories due to the whole memory erasing thing with Bill, but this memory came back in full force for no apparent reason. When it did, I pulled Sixer aside and told him about it. The look of sheer heartbreak on his face made me wonder if it was the right move at first, but the hug that followed told me otherwise. He started to chuckle as he wiped his eyes and made some light-hearted comments about how no one seemed to believe in her gift. The tarot cards may have been bull and she was a known pathological liar, but he knew to some extent that she had it. It probably made him feel good that Ma sorta, kinda knew about what happened to him too since he had missed out on so much. It may not have been the full reunion Ma may have wanted, but we finally did as she wished. Ford and I are together once again, thick as thieves and nearly inseparable.

Now, Sixer wants to try to see if psychic abilities can run in the family. He’s planning on testing this on the kids the next time they come to visit for the summer. Good luck, I told him. Mabel won’t sit still long enough and Dipper, well, he’d probably try so hard to test it that he might pop a blood vessel. I’m thinking I might have to intervene at some point. That’s something a good uncle does, right? I’m sure Sixer won’t let it get that bad but then Dipper is hard-headed and will probably try to do it when we aren’t looking. Just like a true Pines to be stubborn as hell.


End file.
